The Mirror Speaks
by Ysolde
Summary: It won't be so easy, Guinevere. This turf has a vigilante. His name is Tristran, and Snow white, dear Queen, is a thousand times fairer than you. If erotic subject matter insults you, do not read this.


_**Usual disclaimers apply. Tristran is not tame, oh no he is not.**_

_**I think this thing grew out of the song 'Lust' with Tori Amos. Either way, it rather fits.**_

_**Right...:**_

* * *

_Mirror, mirror on the wall_

_Who is the fairest of them all?_

_You, my Queen, are fair; 'tis true._

_But Little Snow-White is still_

_A thousand times fairer than you._

_**ttt**_

I don't have to look to know that her eyes are following me. I know they are, the Bitch calculating the measure of her success this night.

Guinevere. The Queen of Britain, with whom it never sat well that she cannot spark my interest.

The woman who does not seem to understand that my contempt of her nips in the bud any shred of desire her skinny frame might ever spark in my flesh.

Do not misunderstand me. A woman may couple with as many males as pleases her. If she is married and her husband would want to keep her to himself, clearly he will just have to work more on his husbandly duties to her.

I also have no problem with answering to a Queen. Indeed, the leader of my tribe is, or was, a Queen. I remember her rule as just and wise. She was Queen because when she spoke, we listened. Sure, she was beautiful, and she was desired, but when she spoke, she was first and foremost the most competent leader of the tribe.

And this is what irks me:

Guinevere does not speak her mind.

For a scout, perhaps, it may be prudent not to show his colours. After all, it would impair him in the execution of his duties, the nature of which, by themselves, speak for the trust he is worth.

To a Queen and leader, however, such guises are thoroughly unfitting.

To Guinevere, sex is power. She uses the power of the rut to control her surroundings, shamelessly oblivious to the degradation of herself and of those she manipulates this way. Indeed, for all the contempt she professes to harbor towards Rome, she has become very much like the Roman women she so despises.

I have seen her with my Captain, and also (but he doesn't know this) I have seen how Lancelot looks at her.

Those, she has leashed. Not me. Someone must take care of all these lonely men after all. They are my brothers. My tribe. And sometimes, they really do not think with their brains.

Especially Lancelot.

I can forgive them this weakness. They are, after all, with the possible exception of Dagonet, not very bright.

But not her. She is too smart for my forgiveness. It is too plain how she knows exactly what she is doing.

She is intruding on my turf. Surely, she must expect challenge.

Initially, I showed her my thorough disinterest, wanting her to just leave me alone. But, as I have experienced lately, she has sensed my spite, and it seems to only egg her on. She has tried, more and more desperately, to pacify me, using the tools that work on everyone else.

It appears I have turned into an obsession. Apparently, the prospect of a male immune to her charms confuses her.

And I must confess, it _has _ brought me pleasure, torturing her. It is too easy. She is like a bat, a creature that navigates by sound, but does not see very well.

Pray tell me, what do you do to confuse a bat?

You make a whole lot of noise. I have tried it, in the stables. It sends them smack into the walls.

I reckon that by now, she would not just give me the usual finger-wrapping routine. She would eagerly bed me, having long since forgotten why.

Very well. Let us make her think she has won this one.

I wait for some time in my usual corner, pondering how, knowing that she is intently focused on my next action.

Then I set my plan into motion.

I go in a straight line across the floor, to the corner where the whores always keep themselves.

They look surprised, and suspicious. I have never been a guest there before. I know that there are rumors about me, and about my morbid tastes. I have never sought to stop those, because they keep the girls from actively trying to make business with me, and this suits me well.

It is not that I disrespect these women. I have seen this world of the Romans, and I know that here, one must get by as best one can. A living being will stoop to drinking its own piss rather than die of thirst.

But it saddens me when I think of the sacred prostitutes at the temples of the settled people near my home. These priestesses, in the old city of Kolchis, are held in awe. Men go there to learn from them. Even my people, when our wanderings lead us to the pastures closest to that place.

Here, I have seen how women are held in contempt, though I do not profess to understand why. Indeed, it must be no small amount of self-loathing can make a man curse the very womb that bore him into this world.

But in stead of the sacred priestesses, to whom the men of my people were sent early to learn humility towards the female flesh, here the whores stand in their corner. Many of them sick from malnutrition, as well as whatever has been transferred to them through the dew of all the men that have been on them. Sometimes, they brandish black marks or cuts. And it does happen, that someone disappears. In these cases, the woman in question is never mentioned again. She is forgotten.

No. I could never disrespect these women. But this does not mean that I would participate in their degradation and misuse. It would be my own, as much as theirs.

But I have a plan now.

I go to Lidia. She is the most celebrated of all the girls, the one whose talents are most spoken of amongst the legionnaires, and even my own brothers. She has been in the trade since she was twelve. She is pale and frail and lithe like a cat, and her lips are red and her hair is black as coal.

Lidia knows nothing of rut or of pleasure. What instincts she was born with were splintered and twisted and bent long ago and the rest lie dormant, somewhere deep down, concealed from all that is male. Her eyes are dark and they measure you blandly, from the very moment she sees you, calculating the profit against how much she will have to give up.

She is a woman more crippled than even the Bitch. But in opposition to said Bitch, I doubt she ever had a choice, save the choice, perhaps, to starve to death. And come to think of it, I am not even sure about that. They say she was the pleasure-slave of the former Centurion of Cilurnum first, sold by her father in order to feed her younger siblings. When her master tired of her, he threw her at the gates.

I go to Lidia. I know, darkly, that the eyes of the Bitch are still on us. I repress the short surge of fury, not wanting to scare the whore in front of me, though I doubt she scares easily.

I hold up a coin in the air between us. She coldly measures it, then me. Then she nods.

I take her hand and we leave, the Bitch's eyes - I know, once again without looking - following us all the way out .

She won't be able to resist. She will follow. She will want to savor her perceived victory.

She will walk down the alley to obsession of her own accord.

Lidia follows me to where I usually sleep, as obediently and as cooperatively as a rag doll. I know she would do whatever I asked her. She has no borders, nothing left to break.

I leave the door almost closed. She doesn't protest, looking in stead at me, having taken note, I know, of this possible escape route, should the rumors she heard of me prove to be too true.

"So," she says, a joyless smile plastering itself across her pretty but gaunt face. "What would my master want from me?"

For a moment I ponder if the Bitch would really buy into this. The woman in front of me is but a shell, her unbreakable will no doubt holding her up more than any strength possibly left in her starved frame. She is barely attractive to me – I prefer living women, women of curves and of well-nourished hips and of strong thighs.

She has none of those, but the spirit I see there, the beast baring its teeth at me, makes me forget that. Somewhere buried deep inside of Lidia, the woman still sleeps. She cannot hide it.

And i judge that indeed, the Bitch would readily buy into this. She would _want _to, because Lidia is the one amongst the whores who resembles her most, in body and in complexion.

_But even in her pitiful state, she has dignity you will never possess, Guinevere._ I push the thought aside, focusing on the girl in front of me. She has asked, and I must answer.

I close in on her, whispering my command in her hear.

"I want you to enjoy, and to let the world hear your pleasure."

A derisive smile finds its way to her face. Oh, this smile says, I know what you want. You want me to pretend, so that you can imagine that you are the gift of the Gods to all things female.

But I look her in the eye. "I want you to enjoy," I repeat, firmly. And I mean it.

She nods sure, whatever.

Very well. I will have to make an effort then. This could prove a challenge, but I will try. If she is as good an actress as I know from the rumors about her, she does possess the ability to imagine. This ability, along with the sleeping woman I saw within her just now, might help me. If her imagination and my effort combined can wake that woman up, she _will_ enjoy.

To rape a woman into isolation and deathlike sleep is an easy thing. In the world of Rome, I know that many of my own gender do so, every day.

But to rape her back out of the cold prison, back into life and back to her womanhood. That is hard, and risky. It demands that one proceeds with care.

I proceed with care. I take an apple from my stash and carve it out. Then I ask her to sit wherever she pleases. She chooses the table. Fine by me.

I seat myself on the bench by her. I carve out the first boat and offer it to her, pushing it gently to her lips until she opens her mouth, accepting it. Not without a trifle confusion, I see, and it is clear that somehow this unexpected development makes her more uneasy than any monstrous beast she might have been prepared to face.

No matter. She will have to work through that uneasiness.

I hand feed the apple to her, slice by slice, in silence, all the while listening for the almost imperceptible sounds which will give away the approach of the Bitch. It is the creak of a certain board further down the hallway, which _will _make a sound, albeit ever so hushed, no matter how one proceeds to get over it. It is the change of the drafts through the room. It is the subtle shifting of shadows.

The Bitch is not half as elusive as she likes to imagine. I sense her lurking, around the time when I am almost out of apple.

Very well, so we begin.

I feed the last slice of the apple to Lidia. Then I look up at her, and put my hands on her thighs, pushing them apart. I meet no resistance, of course, but then I know she wouldn't. She is working, after all.

_Brave woman. _I surprise myself with the thought. But then I accept it, knowing it is true.

I would like to tell her, but I don't. To do so would, for her, be an intrusion into a space that might be the only thing she has left to herself.

No. Intrusion in any way would mean instant failure in what I am trying to do._ Intrusion _here includes coupling with her the way most males would be interested in doing.

I couldn't even begin to want that. I would be afraid to break her, like a twig, not to mention the diseases I know might ravage her body this very moment.

Honestly, it eludes me how my brothers, at least once brought up in a sensible society with sensible rules of conduct between women and men, can be such daredevils with their health.

As for me, I pass on that cup. You never know where it's been.

Thus, there is only one way I could ever hope to succeed in this.

Lidia senses my intent immediately, her trained perception having witnessed the same language of body from hundreds of males like me. Her eyes narrow. She stiffens up immediately.

"That will cost you extra."

Fair enough. I nod my agreement, and she relaxes again.

She is clean, for which I am thankful, albeit not entirely surprised. I have seen her before, scrubbing herself all over almost until bleeding, by the barrel of rainwater outside in the dark between customers. And sometimes in the river on early mornings.

The rumors have not been exaggerated. She is a very good actress. Initially, I cannot readily gauge if my attention has any effect, or if it is her being splendid at her profession. I push my abilities of observation to the limit, taking my cue from any shifting of body, any slight trembling, any change in her breath. I pick my way in terrain without signs, specked with false tracks and cleverly positioned decoys.

I am a scout. What is my profession, if not knowing how to find my way even in deceitful wilderness?

I am impressed. The cleverness of her maneuvers. The fierce rejection of being owned, if not in body then at least in the innermost core of her shattered being. I am in awe of the resourcefulness of this woman, and I try to convey this to her, not in words but with my lips and my tongue and my breath, forcing her to look at the woman I see, the shining, sleeping woman in the middle of the wilderness that is her.

Ah, but there she is. I taste her, like a wellspring, and at that very moment the whore in front of me shudders abruptly, as if shocked by a blow. Her breath is raspy from what could possibly be consumption, but oh how alive it is. And how she can sing!

Sing Lidia, sing for me. Sing for _her, _the bitch watching you through the crack of the door. Let her hear your pleasure. Let the envy of you fill her mouth with bile and her hips with unrest.

The girl is squirming now. Sensing her fear, I grab hold of her firmly, knowing that I can only try to reassure her that I am no threat. I gather the folds of her skirt in a hard grasp, pushing my clenched hand against her hip and her side, the fabric softening the sensation of direct touch, but conveying support. With it, I demand her trust.

This, I know, is where she will want to turn back.

For the sake of both her and me, and, Gods help it, the sake of the Bitch lurking in the dark, I can't let her. Forgive me, priestess, but I cannot let you escape.

I register fleetingly a movement in the shadows outside the door, and know that Bitch has withdrawn, breath labored and victory snatched away in front of her nose. Apparently, she has decided that she has seen enough.

Very well.

I finish off Lidia then. Sobbing, whimpering, she comes, thrusting her gender desperately against my lips. I allow myself a small smile, against her tender flesh. Good.

Moments later she is rearranging her gown, staring at me hatefully through the curtain of her black hair. The deathlike paleness of her face has been broken. Roses are flowering on her cheeks. She is, indeed, very beautiful.

She turns to leave, fury and humiliation in her shoulders. I do not question her right to be angry. That is not my place; it would be presumptuous. But I stop her at the door, nodding towards the table, where the coin I gave her lies, still warm after being clutched in her hand and then abruptly dropped.

"You have left your payment. You honored our agreement. It is yours."

She hits like a man. The glowing sensation on my cheek is as fine a reward as she could ever grant. But of course, I am not going to tell her. I am in no position to, and she does not belong to me, for such intimate proclamations to be made. It would just be rude.

She storms out.

I never saw her again, but I heard later, from Galahad, that she had left.

"She went to Avalon they say, to join the priestesses there." He looks thoughtful. Then he throws me a withering glare.

"She said you ruined her business. Honestly, Tristran, how sick are you?"

He looks like he is disgusted with me, but then he always is. "Whatever you did to her, I don't want to know." And he shoots one last look of loathing and leaves, dismayed.

I am not angry with him. I know that he quite liked Lidia.

It was plain, because out of all the whores, she was the only one he never sought out.

* * *

_**End note : It seemed so carved in stone from the very beginning, that her name was Lidia. So much so that , after accepting it, and writing this story, I looked up the meaning of the name.**_

_**It turns out Lidia means 'Woman'. Purely and simply : Woman.**_


End file.
